The Art of Doing Everything

One time someone bought me a copy of the book, "The Art of Doing Nothing." I took one cursory glance at the photos of ladies doing, well, nothing, and I tossed the book into the Goodwill pile.

Then I went about my quest to master everything.

This last week, I was supposed to settle down. Calm my mind. Rest my body. Rejuvenate my spirit. It didn't quite happen like that.

Because I had a million things to do.

But I really didn't.

I needed to keep Ben entertained for the week. I needed to pick up a few things for my upcoming vacations. I needed to exercise moderately and eat regularly. I needed to keep my client schedule flowing despite last minute cancellations. I needed to get some sleep.

I'm not even going to tell you how crazed I became just with the tasks listed above. Put it this way: if there was Xanax in the house, I would have popped a pill each hour. If there was anything green in the house, I probably would have smoked it. If someone came in with a syringe full of Botox, I would have offered up my forehead. It's a wonder that I didn't dip into the vodka or uncork a bottle of wine.

Instead, I escaped each night with an episode of "Rescue Me." I don't even know why I watch, except for the fact that I laugh out loud at the raunchy FDNY firehouse humor. And I thank the good Lord above that I am no longer a fire fighter's wife. And, truth be told, Denis Leary has a strange, sexy-like appeal that I can't quite put my finger on.

I digress.

Now it is Saturday and I have gotten up early, cleaned out my shoes, picked up a friend for yoga, killed myself with 75 minutes of ungodly hard yoga, eaten egg white omelet and two delectable bites of peach pancake with two of my favorite yogi ladies, dropped off my friend, stood in an ungodly line at the ATM, deposited business checks for the week, stood in an ungodly line at the pharmacy, picked up endocrine pills that I probably don't need anymore, stalled out in the Whole Foods supplement section, selected vitamins to help with the sore throat that is lasting an ungodly length of time, stood once again in ungodly line to pay ungodly amounts of money for said vitamins, greek yogurt, fake cheeto-s, and organic brown rice, searched car for dry cleaning ticket, waited an ungodly amount of time for the dry cleaning gal to track down my white pants and my black pants, fuel up the car, return ungodly Cover Girl lip stick to RiteAid, contemplate quick trip to Macys to buy a decent lip stick, decide instead to go home and lay on couch for an undetermined - and perhaps, ungodly - amount of time.

And I wonder why I look so darn tired all the time.

Part of me thinks that I still can't quite handle my time without Ben so I create a million and one excuses to stay on the move.

Part of me says that I am a perfectionist at heart and every day needs to be filled with productivity, exercise and multi-tasking.

Part of me knows that I need to slow way, way, way down and get a little more centered.

So rather than take apart the above statements to find out the root cause of my busy-ness, I'm going to sign off and go supine for a while on my beloved couch.

Besides, I have to rest up for tomorrow, which starts with an early Reformer class that I've already signed up for.

Old habits are going to die hard, I'm afraid.